Publication: Case Study 3 - Gujarat, India : Participatory Approaches in Budgeting and Public Expenditure Management
Date
2003-03
ISSN
Published
2003-03
Author(s)
World Bank
Abstract
The state of Gujarat hosts almost a
tenth of India's 80 million tribal people. Despite
official rhetoric of significant investment in tribal
development projects, results on the ground were
questionable. This prompted DISHA (Development Initiatives
for Social and Human Action) to get into the business of
budget analysis in 1992 to ascertain what actually was
happening to funds allotted in the name of the tribals under
the Tribal Area Sub-plan. DISHA thus began by first taking
up the issue of the state's 7.3 million forest
laborers, not recognized as a formal professional group, but
have since broadened the scope of their work to cover most
aspects of budget analysis of general topics. Described as
an attempt at "democratizing the budget process"2,
DISHA obtains budget documents, reviews and disaggregates
departmental allocations for different beneficiaries,
researches the discrepancy between proposed and actual
spending, and prepares briefs on synthesized findings for
informed public debates. DISHA is one of the five largest
membership-based NGOs in India with most of its 80,000
members drawn from tribal and forest workers. Although
linked with its general analytical work on budgets, DISHA
runs a separate lobbying and advocacy movement in favor of
its huge tribal constituency.
Citation
“World Bank. 2003. Case Study 3 - Gujarat, India : Participatory Approaches in Budgeting and Public Expenditure Management. Social Development Notes; No. 72. © Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/7b2cd88c-3aa4-564e-8056-fb91b247f4b1 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”